by Kyra Halland
They pushed on through the worsening weather. While they rested, the shields kept most of the rain off of them – she didn’t dare take time to set up and take down the tent – but otherwise there was no relief from the cold and wet. Silas’s exhaustion and constant pain showed in his drawn face and hunched posture. In the cold weather, he shivered constantly, and the strange chill on his skin got worse. He never spoke, and when they stopped to rest he would huddle in their blankets and seem to disappear into the morass of misery in his mind. Lainie would try to get him to eat, but though he had to be starving, he seemed completely uninterested in food and would only eat what she fed him with her own hands.
Lainie longed to figure out exactly what was wrong with him and put him to rights, but that would require time, a safe place to hole up while she went deep enough into her mage senses to figure out what had been done to his mind and power, and a lot more power than she had right now. In the meantime, she just had to go on hoping that if he hadn’t died by now, he wasn’t going to.
Eventually, with Lainie’s power in a constant state of depletion, the demonsalts craving set in. She did her best not to let the cramps and sickness show; it would only upset Silas. They were well more than halfway to the Gap by now, maybe just another four or five days away. She could make it until they were through the Gap and back in the Wildings, and then she could draw on more of the amber Wildings power to keep her going until they found a safe refuge where she could let her power fully regenerate.
Where that refuge would be, she had no idea. By now, every mage hunter in the Wildings had no doubt received word from the Mage Council in their message boxes offering a bounty for her and Silas that would put that twelve hundred gildings to shame. On top of that, probably half the people of the Wildings were looking to hang them, now that everyone knew who they were. But she would think of something.
As they rode through a cold, steady rain along the outskirts of a small market town one afternoon, something snagged at Lainie’s dimmed mage senses. She reined in Mala and looked around to try to figure out what she had sensed. A magical attack about to be unleashed, or a shielded mage, or some other danger? Then she caught a scent, magical as much as physical, of something spicy and peppery yet sickly-sweet. Every muscle in her body, every fiber of her nerves, seized up in sudden desire.
Demonsalts. Somewhere nearby was a supply of demonsalts. Though she had never even touched the drug itself, every particle of her body and mind demanded she find it. Even if she had to abandon Silas and the horses while she searched for it, even if she had to rampage through every house and shop and shed in the town –
Lainie gripped the reins with white-knuckled hands and stared down at Mala’s neck, forcing herself to focus on what she had to do. She had to stay with Silas. She had to look after him. They had to keep moving.
But, a sly voice in her mind said, if she had the demonsalts, she could regenerate her power. She could put up powerful shields that no one could break down or see though, and she’d be able to get some sleep. She could heal Silas. She could beat their enemies so thoroughly they wouldn’t dare bother her again. Just this once…
She sat in the rain, shaking with her desire for the drug and her struggle not to give in to it, twisting the reins so tight in her hands they cut into her fingers. She could use it just this once, but she had already been through all the hells and back from the secondhand addiction she had picked up from Oferdon. If she gave in, just this once would turn into months of sickness and agony. Just this once could end with her dying in misery like Oferdon had.
But she could help Silas, the voice told her. Wasn’t it selfish of her to worry about what could happen to her when Silas needed help?
Her struggle caught the attention of the remaining Sh’kimech inside her. Sister? they asked. Why do you need poison when you can have as much of our power as you want, if only you ask?
The hunger for power got sharper and deeper. She felt utterly, achingly empty inside. If only she could put a quick end to this long, hard, miserable journey, to sickness and danger and fear, and make Silas well again. She was so tired and worried, and everything had been so hard for so long…
She felt a jostling beside her, and looked up to see that Silas had brought Abenar over next to her. He had a questioning look on his pain-worn face. “Go?” he said in a weary and uncertain voice.
Becoming a slave to the demonsalts or to the Sh’kimech wasn’t the answer. It might make things easier for the moment, but in the end it would only destroy her. Somehow, things would get better, and she just had to hang on until then. She was strong; she could do it. She took a deep breath and forced it out, along with all her weakness and discouragement, and pushed the Sh’kimech back down deep inside of her. “Yes,” she said. “Let’s go.”
As they rode past the town, the scent of demonsalts grew stronger. Tears came to Lainie’s eyes, she wanted them so bad it hurt. But she kept her eyes on Silas, who needed her to be strong and in her right mind, and her thoughts fixed on the hope that sometime, somehow, everything would be okay again, and eventually the scent faded away behind her until it was gone, along with the craving.
* * *
THE STORM ENDED a few days later, leaving the Spine solid white from the foothills to the peaks. Only one thick mass of clouds remained in the sky, right above where the Gap was, shedding a powdery gray curtain of snow down into the pass.
It was a mage-caused snow; it had to be, located in that one spot, with the rest of the storm cleared out. That was why there hadn’t been any sign of pursuit, Lainie realized. Rather than risk another open fight with her, the Mage Council was going to try to trap her and Silas against the snow-blocked Gap, probably in hopes that she would be too tired and drained to fight. If only she had enough power, she could try to push away the clouds so that the sun would melt the snow in the Gap, clearing the way. But the way she was now, she couldn’t even come close to countering the mages, at least three or four of them, she guessed, who were maintaining that snowfall. Snow or no snow, though, she and Silas were going through.
Over the next day or so, they climbed higher into the foothills through increasingly deep snow cover. The mages causing the storm must have drained themselves or decided the pass was sufficiently blocked; the snowfall over the Gap stopped and the clouds drifted away. Lainie doubted the snow would melt before she and Silas got to the pass, but if those mages thought an arm-length or a measure or two of snow would stop her, they were going to find out they were wrong.
By the time they reached the approach to the pass, the road had been scraped mostly clear, though farther up it was still buried under a thick layer of snow. Lainie glanced behind her, as she still did regularly, to see if they were being followed. For the first time since leaving Sandostra, she saw riders coming after them, a good-sized group, several leagues back, dark against the snow-covered landscape. She reached out with a thin strand of her mage senses, all the power she could spare for the task, and easily felt their power. There were ten of them or more, coming unshielded and at an easy pace, as if they knew their quarry was trapped.
“Come on,” she said to Silas, her breath making great puffs in the cold air. She kneed Mala to a gallop and whistled at Abenar to follow. At least Silas seemed more comfortable and confident in the saddle now, after days of long, hard riding. She had put his sheepskin coat and his gloves on him, but he was still shivering from a cold that seemed to go deeper than the chill in the air.
A small guardhouse stood just below the entrance to the pass. As Lainie and Silas rode up, two men in brown uniforms ran out and blocked their way. “You can’t go into the Gap,” one of them said. “Snow’s heavy on the slopes. The danger of avalanche is too high, especially with the sun out.”
So that was why the mages had let the snowfall stop and the clouds clear. They had to be figuring that if the snow itself didn’t stop her and Silas from riding into the Gap, the danger of snowslides would. Lainie looked high into the sky. A few
wisps of clouds drifted over the peaks. If sunlight increased the danger of avalanches, maybe she could pull enough clouds together to block the sun enough to reduce the danger. It would take every shred of power she could dredge up, both her own and the rest of the Sh’kimech and Wildings power she still carried, but she could do it. She had vowed by Wildings soil and Silas’s blood when she took in that power that she would get him safely out of Granadaia and back to the Wildings, and now that power would help her finish what she had set out to do.
She drew her gun and pointed it at the guards. “We’re going through. We’ll take care of ourselves; it’s none of your concern. If you want to try to stop those fellas that are coming after us, that’s fine with me. But we’re going through.”
The guards had put their hands up at the sight of her gun. “Wait, who’s after you?” the second one asked. “If it’s Mage Council, I have to –”
“Damn it, get out of my way!” Lainie fired into the ground at their feet.
They both jumped back, eyes wide in alarm. “You want to go starting an avalanche, that’s a good way to do it!” the first guard shouted. “Fine, we’ll let you go. It’s on your head, not ours, when you’re buried under ten thousand barrels of snow.”
The guards stepped aside, and Lainie and Silas headed on up into the pass. With any luck, the hunters who were after them would be more sensible than she was, or less desperate, and not head into the pass while the danger of avalanche was so great.
The trip through with the cattle had taken thirteen days; Lainie figured that without cattle it would only take six or seven days, eight at the most, even with the heavy snowfall on the ground. For three days, they ascended the pass, the horses plowing through snow as high as Mala’s shoulders. In the middle of the day, when the sun was directly over the pass, Lainie would reach out with all the scraps of power she could summon and gather the scattered, wispy clouds together to block out some of the sun’s warmth. Despite her efforts, from time to time small chunks of snow slid down the mountainsides. Lainie would hold up the horses, waiting, hardly daring to so much as breathe, until the snow seemed to settle again.
A few times, she spared a strand of power to find out if their pursuers were still after them, and found them well back but getting closer, riding in the path that Abenar and Mala had broken. They must have been mighty determined to catch her and Silas to have followed them into the dangerous pass.
The way grew steeper and more difficult through the heavy snow, but Mala and Abenar, fine animals that they were, pressed on without faltering. At times, Lainie had to dismount and break a path through the deepest drifts for them. She rested them as often as she dared and hand-fed them from the grain bags and scraped away snow to uncover what forage there was and promised them a good long rest in a nice warm stable with lots of oats and apples once they got to a place where they could be safe.
Silas was hanging on, though to Lainie he looked a little thinner, a little more worn down, each day. Whenever they stopped to rest the horses, she also did her best to make him rest and to get some food in him. For herself, she was beyond exhaustion, and hunger both physical and magical constantly gnawed at her. But she had no choice but to keep going, so she did. The one mercy was that the demonsalts cravings seemed to have given up on her after she denied them in that little market town. Maybe this time, finally, they were gone for good.
On the other hand, the men who were after them didn’t give up. Lainie guessed they were about six or seven leagues back and slowly gaining on them, undeterred by the danger of avalanches. Lainie tried to think of a way to slow them down or stop them, and an idea came to her. She and Silas were facing that same danger, but maybe she could use the danger to their advantage, if they could make it over the summit before the hunters caught up with them. It was an insane idea, but it had to work. With her plan in mind, she pushed the horses on as fast as they could go, to put as much distance between themselves and the hunters as they could.
On the fourth day, they reached the summit. Lainie reached out with just a thin tendril of power, all she could spare, and felt the mages, maybe only four or five leagues behind them now. Exhausted though she and Silas and the horses were, she kneed Mala into the fastest pace the mare could manage and “Hah’d” at Abenar to follow. Now that they were heading downhill, the going was a little faster and easier. A few leagues down from the summit, Lainie felt for the hunters again. They were even closer now, maybe just a league or so down the Granadaian side of the pass, on the other side of the summit.
Lainie reined in Mala and jumped down. She knelt in the cleared path the horses had left behind them, facing back uphill towards the summit, and set both hands flat on the ground. With a thin strand of power, she reached down deep into the earth. As though taking a deep breath with her whole body, she pulled in as much power as she could, both amber Wildings magic and the dark, cold Sh’kimech, who eagerly welcomed her. The power felt familiar and comfortable; it felt like home; it felt like a banquet after she’d been starving for so long. The more she took in, the easier it was to take in more, until she was filled nearly to bursting with rich, delicious magic.
Then, with one mighty push, she drove the power she had taken in back into the ground, sending a shockwave up the pass to the snow-covered mountainsides along the summit. A long moment later, a roar like the ending of the world echoed down the pass. Lainie stood up and watched in awe as, all along the highest reaches of the pass, winding up out of sight towards the summit, twin mountainsides of snow broke loose and slid down from the heights, sending up plumes as high as the peaks. There was something grand, almost majestic, about the inexorable movement of the snow. The hunters’ power vanished from her senses, either extinguished or just hidden behind the enormous natural force of the avalanche.
And then she saw the mass of snow barreling down the narrow pass towards her and Silas, and realized her mistake. “Oh, shit!” she yelled.
There wasn’t time to outride it, and no room to get out of the way. Loose snow pushed ahead of the avalanche was already starting to blow past. “Down!” Lainie shouted at Silas behind her. She threw herself back down to the ground, slammed her hands against the earth, pulled in all the power she could grab at once, and threw a shield of swirling black and amber between herself and the oncoming wall of snow.
The avalanche hit the shield with a blow that nearly shattered her bones. With all her strength, Lainie braced herself and held the shield against the thousands of barrel-weights of snow and rocks and broken trees beating against it. Her body trembled with the effort, sweat dripped from her face and down her back, her ears were filled with the unearthly roar of the snow thundering past. The avalanche seemed to go on forever and ever as she went on drawing power and feeding it into the shield. With every beat of her pounding heart, she didn’t know how she could hold on any longer, but somehow she did.
Eventually, the roaring in her ears diminished and the pressure against the shield eased until, finally, the movement of the snow slowed then stopped. A moment later, she let the shield drop and looked around. A wall of snow six or seven measures high blocked the pass right in front of her, where the shield had been. She turned; in the other direction, as far downhill as she could see, snow lay heaped up three or four measures high along both sides of the pass with a groove down the middle where the shield had split the snowslide. Behind her, Silas and the horses were safe, protected by the shield.
Relief and exhaustion drained the last of her strength. She sat back, trembling, and let out a long, shaky breath. She had done it. She had rescued Silas from her grandmother’s clutches, and they had evaded the Mage Council’s men and survived the long ride from Sandostra and the trip up the pass. They were back home in the Wildings.
But the journey wasn’t over yet. As they fled from Sandostra, she had wracked her brains to think of where they could go to find rest and safety while she tried to heal Silas of the harm that had been done to him, and now, finally, she had an idea. It
was a long shot, but it was worth a try.
She tried to stand up. It was time to move on; they had a long way to go yet to the refuge she had thought of, and they would freeze if they stayed in one place too long up here. But she couldn’t move. She felt entirely drained of physical and magical strength. Just the thought of getting back on her feet made her want to cry. A spasm of hunger, ordinary magical hunger this time, twisted through her empty, aching insides. If only she could curl up in her blankets and never move again…
Her hat had fallen on the ground nearby while she was holding the shield. She was too tired to even pick it up. But now Silas unfolded himself from his hunched-up position, reached for it, and set it askew on her head. He got to his feet, stiffly and unsteadily, and reached down a hand for her, as she had done so many times for him lately. “Go,” he said.
She looked at him and felt a tiny flicker of strength return, born of nothing more than his belief in her and the need to see him to safety. It wasn’t very much, but it would do for now. She used a stray scrap of power to pull in a little Wildings earth-power, just enough to hold back the hunger and keep going. Then she took his hand and stood. “You’re right, Vendine,” she said. “Let’s get moving. We got a ways to go yet.”
The End
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City of Mages
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The World of Daughter of the Wildings